Our Speakers
Professor Karl Gaffney - MBBChBAO(Hons) FRCPI FRCP
Consultant Rheumatologist, Norfolk & Norwich University Hospital
Professor Karl Gaffney (MB, BCh, BAO Hons, FRCPI, FRCP) has been a Consultant Rheumatologist in Norwich since 1995 where he is service lead for axial
spondyloarthritis (including ankylosing spondylitis), adolescent rheumatology and osteoporosis. He is an Honorary Professor at Norwich Medical School, chair of the medical advisory board, National Axial Spondyloarthritis Society (www.nass.co.uk), founder member, treasurer and chair-elect of BRITSpA www.britspa.co.uk), chair of the British Society for Rheumatology (BSR) axial SpA Biologics Guidelines Committee, member of the National Early Inflammatory Arthritis Project Working Group, vice-chair of the BSR Heberden Committee, co-director and founder of the East of England and London Spondyloarthritis Academy (www.rheumatologyevents.org), and an invited member of the Assessment of Spondyloarthritis International Society www.asas-group.org.
He has also represented the BSR and NASS at the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) appraisal of biological therapies since 2007. He was Rheumatology Service Director from 2008 until 2016, Director of Postgraduate Education in Norwich between 1999 and 2005, and Director of Rheumatology Training, Eastern Deanery between 2001 and 2007.
With NASS he has co-developed primary and secondary care educational programmes for healthcare professionals. These initiatives have been awarded national and European awards for excellence in healthcare communication. He is leading the NASS National Gold Standard Delay to Diagnosis project, launched at the House of Commons in July 2020 www.nass.co.uk/get-involved/gold-standard. His current research interests include epidemiology, dose optimisation and extra-articular manifestations of axial SpA. He oversees a large clinical trials programme and collaborates with other national and international centres. He has published extensively and has been an invited speaker at national and international meetings.
Dr Deepak Jadon - MBBCh(Hons) MRCP(Rheum) PhD
Consultant Rheumatologist, Cambridge University Hospitals
Dr Deepak Jadon is a consultant rheumatologist, Director of the Rheumatology Research Unit, and lead for psoriatic arthritis (PsA) at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge.
Having grown up in Cardiff, he graduated from the University of Wales College of Medicine in 2003, and then undertook clinical training in rheumatology and general internal medicine in Bath and Bristol between 2007-2015. He completed his PhD thesis on ‘biomarkers of psoriatic arthritis phenotypes’ at the Royal National Hospital for Rheumatic Diseases (Bath, UK) in 2015.
Deepak has particular expertise in the investigation and management of psoriatic arthritis (PsA), ankylosing spondylitis (AS), spondyloarthritis (SpA) and rheumatoid arthritis (RA). He is qualified in the use of musculoskeletal ultrasound.
Deepak is Director of the Rheumatology Research Unit at Cambridge University Hospitals NHSFT (Addenbrooke’s Hospital), where he leads a team of 5 research nurses, 3 rheumatology fellows, and 2 administrators. They are currently performing >20 clinical trials / studies of novel cutting-edge medications for the treatment of arthritis and other rheumatological diseases.
He is an Associate Principal Investigator in the Department of Medicine at the University of Cambridge. His research interests include genetic and serum biomarkers of PsA, AS and SpA, in particular those that predict prognosis.
Deepak is Theme Lead for E-learning at the University of Cambridge Clinical School, delivering high quality online learning to year 4-6 medical student.
Prof. Anne Barton FRCP PhD
Professor of Rheumatology, University of Manchester
Prof. Anne Barton is a Professor of Rheumatology and Centre Lead for the Centre for Musculoskeletal Research at The University of Manchester; she is also an honorary Consultant Rheumatologist at Manchester University Foundation Trust.
She joined the University following the award of an MRC Clinical Training Fellowship (1998-2001) and a subsequent Wellcome Trust Advanced Fellowship (2003-2007). She was promoted to full Professor in 2010. Since 2016, she has been Director of the Centre for Musculoskeletal Research at The University, a EULAR Centre of Excellence. She leads the Versus Arthritis Centre for Genetics and Genomics and is Director of the Musculoskeletal theme of the NIHR Manchester BRC.
Her current research focusses on precision medicine; specifically, investigating the factors that influence treatment response to drugs in patients with rheumatoid and psoriatic arthritis. The work involves genetic, transcriptomic and epigenetic studies to predict response but also incorporates work with colleagues in psychology to explore issues surrounding patient-centred factors, such as adherence. She co-leads (with Prof Pitzalis, QMUL) the MRC-Arthritis Research UK jointly funded stratified medicine initiative in RA (Maximising Therapeutic utility in RA (MATURA)). She also leads work in psoriatic arthritis (PsA) aimed at identifying genetic factors that differentiate it from psoriasis in order to develop screening of psoriasis patients to identify those at highest risk of developing PsA. She is an NIHR Senior Clinical Investigator.
Prof. Christopher Buckley DPhil FRCP
Consultant Rheumatologist, University of Oxford
Professor Christopher Buckley obtained a degree in Biochemistry from the University of Oxford (1985) with subsequent undergraduate training in Medicine (MBBS) at the Royal Free Hospital, London (1990). His postgraduate medical training was in General Medicine and Rheumatology at the Hammersmith Hospital, London and John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford.
Prof. Buckley obtained a DPhil arising from a Wellcome Trust Clinical Training Fellowship with John Bell and David Simmons at the Institute Molecular Medicine, Oxford in 1996. Funded by a Wellcome Trust Clinician Scientist Fellowship, he joined the Department of Rheumatology in Birmingham later that year. In 2001 he was awarded an MRC Senior Clinical Fellowship and in 2002 became Arthritis Research UK Professor of Rheumatology.
In 2012 he was appointed Director of the Birmingham NIHR Clinical Research Facility and in May 2017 took up a new joint academic post between the Universities of Birmingham and Oxford as Director of Clinical Research at the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology Oxford and Director of NIHR Infrastructure in Birmingham for Birmingham Health Partners to Direct the Arthritis Therapy Acceleration Programme (A-TAP) which aims to deliver “stratified pathology” in a range of immune mediated inflammatory diseases in order to choose the right disease indication for the right drug. From September 2021 Chris will be based full time at the Kennedy Institute in Oxford as Director of clinical research.
Chris has made major contributions to scientific administration through his roles with the Arthritis Research UK (Chair of the Fellowship Committee as well as EULAR (Scientific Programme organizing committee). He is closely involved in the development of clinical academics and he is a strong and eloquent advocate for clinician scientists in several fora.
Mrs Alisa Bosworth MBE
Founder and National Patient Champion, National Rheumatoid Arthritis Society (NRAS)
With a professional background in business senior management and marketing in the fields of engineering, computers and audio-visual technologies, Ailsa has lived with severe sero-negative polyarthritis for over 40 years.
She founded award-winning charity NRAS in 2001 and led its development into an internationally respected and influential membership organisation for 18 years. She stood down as CEO in June 2019 and took on a part time role as National Patient Champion in order to have more time to devote to family and pursue her interests in developing self-management resources and doing research. As NCP for NRAS, Ailsa contributes on a regular basis to national standards and guidelines through work with NICE, the British Society for Rheumatology, EULAR and others. She is passionate about supported self-management and was Joint Convenor of a EULAR Taskforce to develop recommendations for health professionals to incorporate supported self-management into routine clinical care in order to promote more holistic, patient centred care of people with inflammatory arthritis. These recommendations were published in 2021.
NRAS are leading the way in regard to provision of supported self-management services and resources in RA and are currently developing a new, e-learning programme called SMILE-RA, launching in September 2021 so that many more can access the help they need easily and conveniently. In the light of a changed service delivery landscape in rheumatology due to the pandemic, the acquisition of self-management skills by patients is going to be more important than ever. NRAS are passionate believers that when patients and health professionals work together, this powerful combination has a better chance of realising the outcomes that really matter to patients.
Ailsa received an MBE for services to people with Rheumatoid Arthritis in the 2016 New Year’s Honours.
Dr James Galloway
Consultant Rheumatologist, Kings College Hospital London
Dr Galloway studied medicine in Bristol, before moving to the North West to train in Rheumatology. He trained in epidemiology at the University of Manchester, studying biologic safety using the BSR Biologics Register.
In 2012 he moved to King’s College London to establish his own research group. He continues to maintain an interest in pharmacovigilance, with a focus on the infection risks of immune modulation. In addition, he is the analytics lead for the National Early Inflammatory Arthritis Audit and has also contributed to BSR guidelines (chair of the DMARD guideline working group).
Clinically he works as an honorary consultant rheumatologist at King’s College Hospital, Denmark Hill. His clinical interests are inflammatory arthritis and sarcoidosis.
Dr Galloway is also an enthusiastic educator and is programme director for a post graduate research methods training course, a member of the Rheumatology SCE exams board, and lead for the undergraduate MBBS assessment programme at King’s.
Dr Andrew J Grainger FRCR FRCP
Consultant Musculoskeletal Radiologist, Cambridge University Hospital
Dr Grainger is a consultant musculoskeletal radiologist at Cambridge University Hospital, UK. Within the subspeciality he has particular interests in sports imaging and imaging arthritis. He undertook radiology training in Newcastle upon Tyne, and a subsequent fellowship in musculoskeletal radiology at the University of California, San Francisco. Prior to taking up his post in Cambridge in 2019 he was Consultant MSK Radiologist and Honorary Clinical Associate Professor at Leeds Teaching Hospitals Trust and The University of Leeds for nearly 18 years.
Dr Grainger is involved in imaging amateur and professional athletes from a wide variety of sports. He was on the organising committee to provide imaging for the Londion 2012 Olympics and has provided imaging for other major sporting events.
In addition to his local teaching commitments, he is also in demand teaching and lecturing on national and international platforms. He has served as visiting professor to several institutions, most recently the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia. He is a co-organiser of the British Musculoskeletal Ultarsound Course based in Leeds and Oxford.
He is currently vice-president of the British Society of Skeletal Radiology, becoming president in 2022. He has served on, and chaired committees for the International Skeletal Society, the European Society of Radiology and the Radiological Society of North America. In the past he has served on the executive committee of the European Society of Skeletal Radiology, been treasurer of the British Society of Skeletal Radiology and been program chair of the ISS refresher course.
Dr Grainger has over 150 peer reviewed publications and invited reviews and has contributed 25 book chapters. He is co-editor of 7 books and is musculoskeletal sub-editor for the 7th edition of Grainger & Allison’s Diagnostic Radiology. His most recent book is Post-operative Imaging of Sports Injuries. Springer; 2020.
Dr Stephen Kelly
Consultant Rheumatologist, Barts Health NHS Trust
Dr Stephen Kelly graduated from Edinburgh Medical School and undertook his rheumatology training in London and the Southeast.
Stephen’s PhD, at Queen Mary’s University of London, focused on early inflammatory arthritis and ultrasound imaging and its relationship to synovial histopathology. Dr Kelly is the Clinical Lead and Network Director at Bart’s Health Rheumatology and the Deputy Clinical Director of the R&D department.
Over the past 5 years Dr Kelly has developed the Early Arthritis Service at Bart’s Health and the joint Psoriatic Arthritis Service which he runs with Professor Ciero (Consultant Dermatologist). His research interests include ultrasound imaging and patient stratification and AI.
Prof. Patrick Kiely PhD FRCP
Consultant Rheumatologist, Kings College Hospital London
Professor Patrick Kiely qualified in medicine from the University of London in 1988 and gained a PhD degree in experimental immunology from the University of Cambridge in 1996. He was appointed consultant physician and rheumatologist at St George’s Hospital in London in 1999 and was department lead from 2002-2018. He was promoted to Professor of Practice in Clinical Rheumatology at St George’s University of London in 2020.
He has a major research interest in the management of rheumatoid arthritis, especially optimal use of conventional synthetic, targeted synthetic and biologic DMARDs. He was a co-author of the 1999 NICE clinical guidelines for the management of RA, and the NICE quality standards for RA in 2011. He has over 100 peer reviewed publications and lectures widely on aspects of RA management in the UK and internationally.
His other interests include idiopathic inflammatory myositis, interstitial lung disease and also haemochromatosis arthropathy. He was a founder member of the Haemochromatosis Arthropathy Research Initiative in 2016, has published research findings on clinical and MRI aspects of this condition and is convenor of the eular task force to develop classification criteria for this condition.
He was an Associate Editor for ‘Rheumatology’ 2017-2020, and has been chairman of the S. Thames, Surrey and Sussex Regional Rheumatology Network since 2007.
Dr Elena Nikiphorou MBBS/BSc, MD (Res) FRCP PGCEME FHEA
Consultant Rheumatologist, Kings College Hospital London
Dr Elena Nikiphorou (MBBS/BSc, MD (Res), FRCP, PGCME, FHEA) is a Consultant Rheumatologist at Kings’ College Hospital and Adjunct Senior Lecturer at Kings College London (KCL). She has a clinical and academic interest in inflammatory arthritis, comorbidities and long-term outcomes of disease. She also has a keen interest in medical education with relevant qualifications.
At international level, she is involved in educational activities in Europe as part of the European Alliance of Associations for Rheumatology (EULAR) including the development of a pan-European portfolio for rheumatology trainees and the creation (first author) of the very first online EULAR educational module on nutrition in rheumatic and musculoskeletal diseases (RMDs).
She has been the recipient of multiple awards, bursaries and competitive roles, including the Richard Kovacs prize by the Royal Society of Medicine in 2014, which supported a fellowship in Chicago and the Doris Hillier Award by the British Medical Association in 2018, to support her work on multimorbidity in rheumatoid arthritis and the development of management algorithms tailored to individual need. Outside the UK, she has been the recipient of several international bursaries and awards, including a EULAR-funded educational training fellowship in Finland; an Assessment of SpondyloArthritis international Society (ASAS) award in collaboration with Leiden University, The Netherlands; and a FOREUM Early Career Research grant (2021). She is a trained EULAR methodologist and has participated in multiple EULAR task forces for the development of recommendations, including as a co-convenor (and first author) of the EULAR recommendations on the implementation of self-management strategies in inflammatory arthritis.
Prof. Peter Taylor MA PhD FRCP FRCPE
Consultant Rheumatologist, University of Oxford
Prof. Taylor holds the Norman Collison chair of musculoskeletal sciences at the University of Oxford and is a Fellow of St. Peter’s College. He is Head of Clinical Sciences at the Botnar Research Centre. He was formerly Professor of Experimental Rheumatology at the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology Division, Imperial College London and Dean of the Charing Cross campus. He studied pre-clinical medical sciences at Gonville and Caius College at the University of Cambridge and his first degree was in Physiology. He subsequently studied clinical medicine at the University of Oxford and was awarded a PhD degree from the University of London for research on pathogenesis of arthritis. In the summer of 2015, he was appointed medical director of the National Rheumatoid Arthritis Society, an outstanding patient led-charity. Professor Taylor chaired the UK government and NIHR Translational Research Partnership in rheumatology from 2015-18, an initiative bringing together the UK’s leading academic and clinical centres for experimental medicine and translational research into a ready-formed partnership of Universities and NHS hospitals. He was elected a distinguished member of the British Society for Rheumatology in 2016 and delivered the Heberden Round that year.
Professor Taylor has specialist clinical interests in inflammatory arthritis. He has over 25 years’ experience in clinical trial design and international leadership in studies of biologic and small molecular therapies in rheumatoid arthritis and ankylosing spondylitis including the earliest seminal trials of anti-TNF and anti-IL-6 receptor therapy. In experimental medicine studies, Professor Taylor employs targeted therapies as probes of pathogenesis to investigate the in vivo biology of the target in the pathobiology of the disease phenotype under investigation. His related research expertise includes investigation of mechanisms sustaining inflammation and development of novel outcome measurements for application in assessment of response to therapy, including ultrasonographic, PET and high-field magnetic resonance imaging technology. His interest in novel outcome measures also includes new tools for the personalised assessment of well-being which can be used adjunctively to clinical outcome measures in informing management decisions.
Dr Kanta Kumar
Associate Professor, University of Birmingham
Dr Kanta Kumar: Associate Professor, University of Birmingham & and Hon Professor, PGI, Chandigarh, India
In 2003 Kanta took up a post as a nurse researcher and developed a profile of research around the issues related to ethnicity in musculoskeletal practice and behavioural medicine. She has a track record of publications in this area of work. Her compelling body of work with minority ethnic populations living with rheumatological disease is having an impact and influencing the rheumatology community both in the UK and abroad.
She has been awarded a RCN award for the work in South Asian patients. She also holds a “Patient in Focus” award from the National Rheumatoid arthritis Society. She has been appointed as an Associate Professor in Advanced Clinical Practice at the University of Birmingham.
Kanta holds a Hon Professorship at PGI, Chandigarh, India. She is a member of the British Society for Rheumatology Educational Committee, an Advisor on the National Rheumatoid arthritis Society Medical Board (and the founder of NRAS Apni Jung (our fight) against rheumatoid arthritis), a member of the South Asian Health Foundation (Musculoskeletal). Kanta is an Associate Editor for the Arthritis Care & Research Journal.
